A PREDATORY network of anonymous online mobsters are duping teens by promising them jobs – only to then force them into a life of crime.
Digital criminals are enlisting cash-strapped Gen Z teens through social media, exploiting them for one-time crimes, including anything from robberies to child sex trafficking.
This disturbing phenomenon is known as Tokuryū – a phrase coined in Japan – as cyber crooks exploit social media savvy and naive young people.
Japan is experiencing a surge in freelance crime using this approach, coinciding with the decline of traditional gangsters, the Yakuza, which saw a record low in membership in 2024.
These one-and-done odd jobs are called yami-baito, which roughly translates to “shady casual work”.
And cops are struggling to adapt to this new generation of one-and-done “casual” criminals rather than traditional gangs.
Once candidates provide their personal information to apply for seemingly legitimate jobs offering high cash rewards, these manipulators use the details for blackmail.
In some instances, leaders even threaten the recruits’ families if they refuse to comply with their demands, according to Martina Baradel, a Japanese organized crime expert, speaking to The Sun.
She stressed it was “difficult” for young people to escape this ploy once they had handed personal details over like their ID.
One such scheme was involved in a tragic robbery that made news in Japan last year when a 75-year-old man was killed at his Yokohama residence during a botched burglary.
The senior citizen’s bloodied corpse was found covered in bruises with his hands and feet tied up with tape.
A 22-year-old man was apprehended concerning the murder, explaining to police how he was drawn into the robbery due to his fear that refusing to obey would jeopardize his family’s safety.
He said he was tricked into believing he had signed up to a part-time job through social media before realising it was actually a home-invasion gang run by a criminal mastermind.
He reportedly told cops: “I wasn’t able to refuse because the boss knew my personal information.”
The suspect also said that he took part in the botched burglary with two other men he had never met before, local media reported.
Baradel said: “There is really no kind of identity or longstanding cooperation between [Tokuryū] actors.”
Unlike the highly structured Yakuza, whom police have dealt with for decades, the Tokuryū system is decentralised – making it challenging for authorities to pinpoint ringleaders.
Baradel said police find it “difficult” to crack down on Tokuryū due to their lack of experience dealing with digital organised crime.
“The police is very used to dealing with the Yakuza… [But] law enforcement needs a little bit of time to adapt,” she said.
Last year, police said over 10,000 suspects had been arrested and classified as Tokuryū.
In May 2023, terrifying footage emerged of four masked raiders, aged just 16 to 19, storming a luxury watch shop armed with crowbars in broad daylight.
When cops nicked the teenage suspects hours after the ordeal in central Tokyo, it became clear they were all total strangers to each other.
She said: “This is the danger of these groups, because they’re using inexperienced people who can kind of act out in unexpected ways.”
Since August 2024, Japan’s capital has seen an alarming increase in robberies like this carried out by Tokuryū gangs – but the problem isn’t confined to Tokyo.
Last month, Osaka police cracked down on a 70-member ring which allegedly forced over 100 underage girls into prostitution – with the victims reportedly recruited through social media.
Police are still probing the Tokuryū ring to identify all the girls – but the busted gang is believed to be just one of countless groups who are using this method.
Although underage prostitution is “not really new” in Japan, the means of organising it have evolved with the advent of online messaging apps, Baradel said.
She described child sex trafficking as a “social crisis” which has gripped Japan for years, but one which is now transitioning with the digitisation of organised crime.
“It’s something that has been happening before already, and I think going online is just a different ramification of something that has happened before,” she said.
The crime expert added: “If you have new ways to to organise activities, and it’s easier to do it, and it’s less risky, you will have more and more people doing it.”
One of the most prominent cases of Tokuryu was reported in January 2023, when a gang stormed a Tokyo home, tied up a 90-year-old woman and killed her.
Cops later traced their phones back to a shadowy ringleader called Luffy, who was running the operation from inside a Philippine prison.
Luffy and his other gang-mates had also been using encrypted app Telegram to recruit and direct young criminals in Japan – raking in billions of yen in the process.
Baradel confirmed that these groups can be made up of a mix of foreign or Japanese criminals – even including some from traditional Yakuza gangs.
The Japanese gangs expert also said the fact that Tokuryū is “purely predatory” in nature arguably makes it more dangerous than the Yakuza.
Distinguishing the two terms, she described Tokuryū as a “subset of organised crime” while the Yakuza is the “collective name of the Japanese mafia”.
“Tokuryū is more like a modus operandi, so it is more like a way in which technological innovation has allowed some people [who may or may not be in the Yakuza] to operate,” she said.
“It is simply a way in which some actors can come together.”
Although the notorious Yakuza has a deep-rooted history in brutal crime, they try to maintain good relations with the public, on some occasions even donating to charity.
But Baradel describes criminals operating through Tokuryū to be solely exploitative.
She said: “Tokuryū is not selling service, so they do not need to be accepted by the population, they just need to make as much money as they can in without getting caught.”
Baradel warned that if the crisis isn’t tackled, predatory crimes will spiral – with the weakest in society, including poor children, most at risk.
But she did identify “people being alone” as a factor that police should look into when fighting Tokuryū.
She said: “I’m talking for both underage and senior citizens as well – it’s when they are left alone, and there is no one telling them that this is fraud.”
She added: “I think if you are alone, kind of sad and desperate, it’s kind of very easy to be, you know, to wanting to to think that you can change your life.”
